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On a couple of different occasions, I have used this space to call for an end to the economic, moral, and cultural disaster that is the drug war (1, 2, 3). American governments at all levels have been fighting the war on drugs for over four decades now, and it's overwhelmingly clear that it's time to cut our losses, admit that the whole thing was a mistake, and work toward restoring the lives that have been destroyed by the drug war.

I'm surprised--and saddened--that this isn't more of an issue in the Presidential race. Both major party candidates are bona fide drug warriors. Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson have called for an end to the drug war, but unfortunately, candidates from outside the major parties have a difficult time getting noticed by major media outlets. I hope that changes, but in my experience news outlets tend to pretend that there are literally only two people on the ballot.

Most major media outlets also tend to treat legalization as if it is a crazy idea that is absolutely outside of serious discussion. The people behind Seattle Hempfest, meanwhile, have been working to change that. For just over two decades, volunteers have been holding "the world's largest cannabis law reform event." I'm not a cannabis user myself, but I am a concerned citizen who is distressed about the erosion of basic liberties, the crime, and the mass incarceration that the drug war has brought us.

As I've mentioned before, prohibition is a textbook example of a policy with severe unintended consequences. The prohibition of marijuana and other drugs has produced unintended consequences not at all unlike those that resulted from the prohibition of alcohol in the twentieth century.

As events like Hempfest demonstrate, prohibition has done very little to stop people from getting drugs of all kinds, and it has also done little to prevent the emergence of a thriving community of marijuana enthusiasts. Some people know a lot about classic cars. Others know a lot about fine wine. Still others might be really into crazy straw design or connoisseurs of still pictures of Joe Biden eating a sandwich.

In the same way, there are a lot of people out there who know a lot about pot. How much? A picture is worth a thousand words. Once again, Brian Wallace from Nowsourcing, Inc. has been kind enough to share this handy infographic. If nothing else, this suggests that while pot prohibition has led to a the incarceration of a lot of people, it hasn't exactly kept the drug out of the hands of enthusiastic users. Marijuana prohibition has been a terrible mistake that has ruined far too many lives. It's high time we own up to it.

Edited 8/17/2012, 11:15 PM: The infographic was replaced because there was a typo in the original version.